THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
161 
SUMMER WILD FLOWERS. 
the summer advances the flowers change their places, 
like the stars in heaven. From the fields and the 
copses they seem to be travelling to the mountains, to 
the great lakes, to the rocky wildernesses, and the lands 
deserted by all save them. There are flowers in the 
meadow now whether the grass be rising fat and flowery for the 
scythe, or be already closely shorn, and the fragrant harvest lying 
in heaps arouud, while a new green blade is springing, and needs 
but one shower to bring forth again upon the even mead the 
delicate greenness of the spring. Flowers, indeed, are plentiful every- 
where, but a host of elegant things that lighted up the hedgerow 
and the meadow have departed, but the heath lands and the rocks are 
sweetly dotted with the fresh growth of ferns, and the waters are 
newlv fringed with their own peculiar forms of vegetation. 
Glancing again at the hedgerows and gardens, we shall find 
many flowers yet- in their prime that belong rather to May than 
June. Prominent amongst these are several of the Borage tribe, 
renowned for the fine tones of azure and amethyst in their flowers, 
and the presence in sensible quantities of nitrous salts in their 
juices. One well worth searching for, and as likely to be found in 
the cottage garden as the field, is the Lungwort, Pulmonaria offici- 
nalis, with spotted leaves, lively pink buds, and bright blue flowers. 
A near relation to it is the Common Gromwell, Litliospermum offici- 
nale, which haunts rubbish heaps and dry banks. It grows a foot 
or more high, and has rough leaves and dirty yellow flowers, which 
are succeeded by nut-like seeds of a grey colour, which deck the 
plant like so many pearls. The Common Borage, Borago officinalis, 
with its splendid blue flowers, may be regarded as the type of its 
race ; and the student of botany would do well to grow it in the 
garden, for indeed it is rarely met with wild. It will be found that 
the flower of this plant consists of a single petal cleft into five divisions 
forming a proper corolla, with five stamens inserted into the corolla, 
and alternate with its lobes. On the under side is a calyx of five divi- 
sions. The corolla falls in one piece, leaving the calyx complete 
to protect the seeds. The Viper's Bugloss, JEchium vulgare, is a 
robust and rough relative of the Borage, and one of the most splendid 
of all our wild flowers. It attains a height of two or three feet, the 
flower spike often measuring a foot in length. The flowers occur in a 
succession of short comb-liketufts,thebuds bright pink,theflowerspale 
blue, or full cobalt blue, or richest violet— a glorious assemblage of 
colours that compels us to pardon the rusticity of the plant. 
Less interesting, perhaps, but more useful than any other member 
of the Borage tribe, is the Comfrey, Symphytum officinale, which 
may be known by its large light-green leaves, numerous bristles, 
and clusters of white, yellow, or pink flowers, which remotely 
resemble in forth those of Solomon’s Seal, though the Comfrey is 
very far removed from that plant, which, indeed, belongs to the 
lilies. The Comfrey affords excellent food for milch kine, and is in 
Jana. 11 
